The culinary and classical encyclopedia adamantly claims that the steak is a beef steak, a piece of fried beef tenderloin. The haute cuisine for beef steak meat makes too harsh demands: meat for beef steak is cut only in a certain part of the carcass. It is clear why beef tenderloin is so expensive and not always found in ordinary stores. Elite restaurants buy such meat before it can reach the counter, even earlier.
But, having a great culinary experience, unlimited access to information posted on the World Wide Web, we will not despair. Other meat is also great for making minced beef steaks, and they are sometimes even tastier than a whole piece of beef tenderloin. It all depends on the indefatigable culinary imagination.
Minced meat steak - basic technological principles
The classic beef steak is prepared from beef, even if the meat is minced. But you can depart from this principle if you want to cook a meat dish deliciously, but there is no beef. Feel free to use any sirloin meat that is in the refrigerator: chicken, turkey, pork, beef, lamb - all options are suitable. But remember that the steak is different from the cutlet by the cooking technology, even if you use ordinary cutlet minced meat or minced meat for its preparation.
To bring the taste of the chopped beef steak closer to the original recipe, let's see what stages of cooking go through a piece of beef tenderloin before becoming a famous classic beef steak.
Slices of beef for a steak are necessarily cut across the fibers. The thickness of the piece is important for the degree of frying. The meat should not be too thin so that the steak is not dry and stiff after frying. The ideal thickness is one and a half centimeter, given that after frying the product will almost halve in size, and meat juice should still remain in the finished product. As a rule, all steaks have a round or slightly oval shape, the same size as the thickness of the tenderloin.
Natural beef steak is traditionally soaked before cooking in various marinades, using sweet and sour ingredients or similar to taste mixtures. Peppers are added to marinades for pungency, spicy ingredients for flavor, garlic, ginger, horseradish for a piquant taste.
Marinade, in addition to flavoring meat, prepares meat protein for heat treatment - this is its main significance. The fact is that protein coagulates (contracts) at high temperature. As a result, liquid is displaced from the fibers, which immediately evaporates in a hot pan, and the steak, cutlet or beef steak becomes inexpressibly stiff and does not look tempting at all. The presence of acid in the marinade softens the meat fibers, which reduces their reduction during frying. Sugar or other sweet components add piquancy to meat dishes, emphasize taste, and when frying form an appetizing caramel crust. A crust on the surface of the meat prevents evaporation of the juice from the inside. In cooking, too, everything is interconnected, and all principles are based on the physics and biochemistry of products and how to process them.
It remains to add that minced meat for cooking steaks is an even more convenient and easy option. Small pieces of meat, of course, also shrink during frying, but this does not distort the product, and to avoid loss of juiciness, be sure to fry the semi-finished product so as to quickly form a crust on the surface.
All known and still unknown marinade recipes for a natural beefsteak from a whole piece of meat are also suitable for minced meat, only in the second case you need to add less liquid so that the mincemeat does not blur when forming medallions, and the product has a beautiful even shape.
Another detail: try not to add bread, starch, flour and other thickeners to the minced meat for the steak. These are not homemade cutlets. Now you can start testing the recipes.
1. Minced meat steak - a simple picnic dish
Ingredients:
Minced meat (beef) 750 g
Soy Sauce 75 ml
Dijon mustard 100 g
Honey 90 g
Butter 120 g
Orange juice, natural 200 ml
Coriander 15 g
Clove 5 g
Pepper (paprika), ground 20 g
Cooking method:
Add all the ingredients to the cutlet meat. Stuffing should be thoroughly mixed and, having covered the container with a film, put for ten or twelve hours in the refrigerator for ripening. It is convenient to prepare such a cutlet mass for the night. The next day, remove the meat, form round medallions from it, 1.5 cm thick. Semi-finished products can be fried in a grill pan, on a wire rack.
Serve with baked vegetables and spicy tomato sauce.
2. Minced meat steak with egg and onion - hearty breakfast
Ingredients:
Minced pork 900 g
Ground pepper
Salt
Eggs, diet 6 pcs.
Onions (rings) 600 g
For garnish:
French fries
Vegetable salad (cucumbers, tomatoes)
Order of preparation:
Choose a semi-fat pork for the steak. Fat will give juiciness to meat, so in the cutlet mass it should be at least 25%. Chop the pulp with a knife, add spices. Beat the minced meat until the appearance of meat juice containing collagen (protein), which holds together pieces of minced meat or minced meat. Keep the prepared meat in the cold so that the protein begins to harden. This will help to easily form round meat cakes. Consider that meat when frying loses up to 40% of the mass. Therefore, the weight of the raw semi-finished product must be laid taking into account these losses.
For frying a steak with an egg, it is necessary to cook round tins without a bottom: tin cavities for cookies are suitable. Preheat the pan. Fry the steaks until golden brown, turn over, and put on each metal ring. Inside the rings, beat one egg carefully over the steak. The second side of the steak will be fried simultaneously with the fried eggs. Adjust the heat of the stove so that the egg white curls at the same time as a crust appears on the underside of the steak. Transfer portions to plates. In the same pan, after removing the forms, fry the onions, sliced in rings and sprinkled with flour.
Potatoes are best deep-fried from vegetable fat. Lay it on portioned dishes, next to the steak, and juicy slices of cucumbers and tomatoes will decorate and balance a hearty breakfast.
3. Minced meat steak with cream sauce
Ingredients for 6 servings:
Beef minced 750 g
Paprika, dried (pieces) 50 g
Garlic (cloves) 8-10 pcs.
Lemons (juice and zest) 2 pcs.
Olive oil 75 ml
Fresh thyme (leaflets)
Salt
Butter, 50 g
Egg 1 pc.
Cream (20%) 150 ml
Order of preparation:
Chop the minced meat with a little salt to begin the separation of the juice, mix and form round meat cakes. In olive oil, add paprika, thyme leaves, fresh zest.
Preheat the oven to 220 ° C. Grease the baking dish with the cooked oil mixture. Put whole slices of garlic in it between the steaks. Using a brush, coat the semi-finished products with the same mixture. Bake until cooked. Then sprinkle the steaks with the juice of one lemon, cover the hot mold with foil for ten minutes.
Beat the egg and butter in a lush foam, pour the cream, heated to 90-95 ° C, in a thin stream, without stopping the whipping. Add the juice of the second lemon, chopped slices of baked garlic, zest and thyme leaves. Bring the sauce to a boil, remove from the stove. When it has cooled to room temperature, transfer to the refrigerator. The sauce must be served cold, so it can be prepared in advance.
Such a steak will perfectly complement cream cheese, tomatoes, olives. In any case, so they say in Florence.
4. Minced meat steak with almonds and sesame seeds
Ingredients:
Beef (minced meat) 1.8 kg
Sesame 200 g
Almonds, ground 150 g
Soy sauce 100 ml
Honey, liquid 90 g
Garlic 50 g
Ginger (root) 70 g
Coriander 25 g
Vegetable oil 200 ml
To design a dish:
Lettuce, curly parsley, pickled ginger
Order of preparation:
Grind garlic and almond root on a fine grater or using a blender. In ground beef, add all the main ingredients except sesame seeds. Shuffle. Cover the mass with a film and let it ripen in the refrigerator for at least two hours. Then proceed to the formation of semi-finished products. If desired, they can be fried in a pan, baked in the oven or on the grill.
Serve by first putting on a plate a leaf of lettuce, a sprig of parsley. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Lay pickled ginger next to it.
5. Minced meat steak - "Bloody Mary"
Ingredients:
Stuffing 1.2 kg
Salt
Lemon 2 Pcs.
Celery (stalks) 50 g
Tomatoes 100 g
Pepper
Vodka 75 ml
Lettuce, lemon wedges - for decoration
Cooking:
Remove the zest from one lemon and squeeze the juice. This is for ground beef. Blanch fresh tomatoes, peel, chop to a puree consistency, and also add to the minced meat with salt and pepper. Add vodka. Keep the mass in the cold for ripening, as a standard - at least two hours. Then form round cutlets and fry in any way: in the oven, on the grill or in a pan.
6. Minced meat steak with mint and fruit sauce
Ingredients:
Beef 700 g
Pork fat 300 g
Black pepper
Brown sugar
Soy Sauce
Salt
Clove
Coriander
Cognac 150 ml
Frying oil
Sauce:
Baked apples 3 pcs.
Blackcurrant (juice) 100 ml
Honey 50 g
Chili pepper (powder)
Oil, vegetable 90 ml
Starch, corn 30 g
Mint leaves to taste
Cooking:
Chop the meat and fat at random, pass through a large grinder mesh. Add all the spices to the meat except cognac and butter. Stuff the minced meat. When adding spices, salt and sugar, be guided by your taste. Beat the minced meat and keep it in the refrigerator. Form semi-finished products weighing 150 g. Fry the chopped beef steaks by heating the oil in a pan. After frying, carefully pour cognac into the pan and set fire to it using a long match or wooden skewer. Before this cooking step, make sure that there are no flammable objects nearby. Flaming, after burning out the alcohol, gives the meat a unique flavor. This cooking technique can compete with your favorite meat fried at the stake, given that after burning the alcohol in the dish there are no carcinogens harmful to health, wood combustion products.
The sauce can be prepared the day before. This is a very simple and festive original recipe. In addition, a pleasant combination of acid, sweetness and pungency with the freshness of mint is ideal for fried meat.
Separate mashed baked apples. Pour berry juice into it, add honey and starch. Stir the mass, bring to a boil, add spices, also to taste. Scroll the finished sauce in a blender at high speed, adding chopped fresh mint.
The sauce is served cold to a hot steak.
Minced Beef Steak - Useful Tips
To ensure that the steak is always juicy, fry it in a hot pan to ensure the rapid formation of a dense crust that will trap the meat juice inside the semi-finished product. Turning the product on the other side, put a piece of butter under it so that the meat acquires a creamy nutty taste.
Do not rush after frying to remove steaks, meatballs, steaks and other meat dishes from the pan. Cover them with a lid or foil, at least for five minutes, so that the meat "rests", and, formed on the surface, the crust has become less stiff and dry.
